


An Ode to Those Who Will Live

by overtture



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chess Metaphors, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Gender-Neutral My Unit | Byleth, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Napping, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, One Shot, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), They/Them Pronouns for My Unit | Byleth, or: byleths favorite place to take catnaps is on top of war plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25322119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/overtture
Summary: Between battlefields and meetings, Byleth ponders the definitions of divinity, the creation of Atlas, Kings and Queens, Beginnings and Endings.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Kudos: 9





	An Ode to Those Who Will Live

**Author's Note:**

> i started playing three houses a few months ago. i still havent finished my first route :pensive: ive only made it to the time skip and became so overwhelmed with emotion i havent picked it up since out of how busy school's kept me and how broken i know my heart will be. so of course i wrote a fic at 4 am to make myself less sad
> 
> enjoy this nice world where people actually talk their shit out!

“Sothis,” Byleth starts, stops. They said her name, if just to keep themselves from backing out of their sentence. They never spoke without purpose. “Do you think I am divine, now?”

Sothis is blurry, but Byleth cannot tell if that is their own tired eyes, too many hours awake, or if she is actually smearing. They consider, for a moment, leaning sideways towards her. They are close enough, despite perching upon the steps ascending to the throne she sits upon, that they could lean into her. Their head against her legs. Almost like the cats she’s so fond of.

“I don’t know. I suppose that depends on your definition of divinity.”

They ponder this. “I don’t have one. My hair has changed color, but I am not as different as everyone makes me out to be. They seem to believe I am some religious figure.”

“Well, are you?”

“Religious texts are usually glorified history. I had always believed this, before becoming acquainted with Seteth and Flayn.”

“And Rhea.”

Byleth rolled their irritated neck, massaging the back of it with one hand. “Yes. My origins, the words of Rhea and others, they lead me to believe, along with you, that I may be divine. Or at least, in a position of being a divine figure now.”

The blur of Sothis tilted her head. “So what if you are?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” they say. Then, quickly adding, “please.”

Sothis hmmed. “Do you really wish to know my thoughts?”

“As you are likely the most divine being to grace Fódlan? Yes.”

“I suppose you are not wrong, dear Byleth.” A short giggle followed by solemn silence. “Consider, then, our relationship.”

At their own encouraging silence, she heaves a small sigh, shifting upon the throne’s seat as the atmosphere almost darkens. "Am I the god, or are you? Are you the mortal, or am I? At this point in time, are they indistinguishable?"

Byleth's words come out heavy and terribly fragile in the cavernous void between them. "I think we're just two people trying to be the best that we can be with the hand we've been dealt."

Sothis is quiet. "I don't know who I am, anymore."

"You're Sothis. My sister, my goddess, my lover, my dearest friend. You're the beginning."

"And who are you?"

"I was mortal."

"And now?"

"Now," they stop, start, pause, and stare at their hands, voice soft and almost wondering. "I don't know."

"This war will make you otherwise if you let it," Sothis says gently, like trying to break a tragedy to them as carefully as possible. Hesitantly. Remorsefully. It’s enough to bring their eyes back to her. "Your leading buck will make you a ghost. Your little lion king will make you a demon."

"Would that be any worse?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. It's all perspective, is it not?"

"Would Edelgard make me mortal?"

"Frighteningly so," Sothis' eyes are wet. "The best and worst people are. Or maybe she would make you both, or all of them. Maybe any or all of the three could. It is speculation, after all."

"A goddess doesn't know?"

"Oh, Byleth," she breathes, "goddesses aren't real."

"Sothis?"

"I am thou," she says, finally looking away, up towards the empty heavens, voice low and eyes gleaming, "and thou art I. You are as much of a god as I am, just as I am as much as you are."

"Fódlan is going to shatter under the weight of this war," Byleth tries.

"Than let it fall. Maybe this is our punishment. Or maybe, there is no other force in this world, and we are well and truly alone, with us, ourselves, our own. Our fates are our own. This world is our own. We are all gods."

"You don't believe that, Sothis."

"Some of it I do, but... No, I have long past from this realm. This is no longer my world. It is yours, Byleth. Byleth, the child. Byleth, the monster. Byleth, the mercenary. Byleth, the professor. Byleth, the tactician. Byleth, the lover and Byleth, the fighter. Byleth, the end."

"The beginning is a much more hopeful title."

"Ah, but the end brings new beginnings regardless. The end is a period, definite, absolute. It is true, lawful. It is just as important as the journey."

"The end... I want things to go back to how they were."

"No, you don't."

"No," Byleth agreed tiredly, dropping their head again. "I don't. But I don't know how to fix this."

"Maybe it can't be. You said Fódlan was ready to shatter, did you not? Mayhaps the solution to the broken continent is to let it break and rebuild it. Glass is easier to repair in pieces than it is to try and patch."

"Is that true?"

Sothis bares her teeth in the same way Byleth used to try and smile for students with hearts of rubble and stained glass tears. "I have no idea. But our options are limited at this point in time."

"They will look to me for guidance if I lead the force of the change. I'll become an Atlas."

"I'll be there for you. I will simple be you. Just as you are I. So will your eagle, lion, buck, the rest of them with just a letter."

"I don't think I have the endurance for that. I don't think I could– that– I don't think that's–"

"You would endure," she looks so tired, now, when she redirects her gaze back downwards at them, "you would endure... just a little longer. For them. For this brilliant, horrible continent. I know it."

"What does it mean, to be a voluntary Atlas?" They ask. "What is worth that? What creates that?"

"There's no point in me spelling it out for you."

"Why?" Byleth can barely scrape day-to-day. Even now, they feel they may collapse under the weight of those words. They try again, “how?”

“Because you already know it,” she smiles again, small, crooked. Their own smile, they realize, “because I’m you, you daft fool.”

They focus their eyes again, but there is no one there. They can’t tell if Sothis was ever there, there is no sign, but there never has been in this throned void of their mind any other time.

“Sothis... I wish we could’ve really gotten to know each other,” they say to the emptiness. “The real way. I wish your memories hadn’t come with such a cost. I wish...”

They can feel their throat clench against their will, emotion swelling. Another gift.

“May we meet again, in another life.”

Between blinks, Byleth raises their head from their arms.

“Oh, teach!” Claude’s voice startles them further awake, even as they mute their flinch. “Hey Mimi! Our sleeping beauty is awake!”

“Professor- sorry, _Byleth-_ please tell Claude to cease the nicknaming,” Dima sighs heavily, almost petulantly as he _thmps_ into the seat across the table from them. “I genuinely do not know how much more teasing I can take from the troops.”

They smile, just a little, rubbing their aching neck. “And yet, the morale has never been higher.”

“Yeeah, _the morale!”_ Claude hollers victoriously, throwing himself down into the chair to their left, tossing his legs up on the tabletop. “You heard the teach!”

“Boots,” Byleth says. Claude obediently slips his feet from the tabletop. “How long was I asleep.”

“An hour. Do try to keep your sleep confined to the bedroom, Byleth. The officials were... quite ruffled,” Dima reports, despite the glint in his eyes that betrays his worry. “We need to give off a good image to potential allies if we hope to take any action.”

“I hate to agree, but his Kingliness is correctamungo,” Claude grins at a disgusted, cringing Dima before focusing again on their wavering form with a cheeky, concern-tinged wink. “You gettin’ enough sleep, Big B? You’re the last person I thought to sleep in class.”

“Yes, I’ve simply been thinking more than usual, about our futures,” Byleth recalls their dream as it begins to trickle from their memory. “The future of Fódlan. My own fate.”

“And?”

They blinked back up at the two men before them, away from the straying of their mind. They both peered back, full-focus at their serious tone. “I have accepted my fears and settled my unease. I have only certainty in myself and those in our care going forward.”

Claude gives his lopsided smile, the one a little more real, genuine, than the rest. “Good to hear, good to know! With you at the helm, we’ve got a good chance at victory.”

“Aye,” Dima bobs his head with a pleased hum, “it is relieving. We can have nothing but resolute determination in the rest of this conflict lest we wish the death and destruction of our cherished life and loves.”

“Well, I suppose that, too.”

“Edelgard... El will let her motivation drive her six feet under. We must do the same, or fall to her warpath. I refuse to let that happen. We will require your remarkable abilities to convince her to waver, even if it to her advantage.”

“Eh?! Don’t tell me we’re still recruiting her, By!” Claude pouts, eyes straddling the line between that teasing glint and genuine seriousness when they meet their own gaze. “I thought the dream team trio worked well enough!”

Byleth tilts their head with a small rue smile of their own. “You know as well as I that her skills are unmatched and her drive is unwavering. Our common enemy will wait only for the continent to seal its fate before picking the remains like carrion birds. The future that all sides of the war desire will never come to pass should we remain willfully ignorant to the infection in Fódlan’s veins.”

“Besides, Edelgard obviously knows something of our mutual enemy, holds the same scorn towards them she holds to the system they play to,” Dima adds, crossing his arms and leaning back, inclining his head. “Her goals are well-meaning, even if it takes the blood, sweat, and tears of innocents and demons alike to pave the streets she wishes to build.”

“History won’t favor her, that’s for sure, but I _guess_ I see your point,” Claude admits, leaning on his own forearms as Byleth rearranges the map they had slept upon.

“It won’t, but in the same instance, it may never favor us either,” the king says lowly, eyeing the red X’s scattered, small shorthand notes dotting each hill and crevasse.

“Ha! I suppose that’s true,” he crowed, pulling his chair in to sit at the table proper, eyes sharping with wisdom granted by age, “so on that note, By, what’re you thinking our next goal’s gonna be? I got Houses to report to who'd like to know how our next moves are shaping.”

Dima sat up straighter, his own face creasing with attention and familiar focus, “I hadn’t wanted to push, but I am also curious, I can’t lie.”

Byleth smiles at their boys, no longer their youthful, naive students, but still all the more eager to stand at their side, despite it all- just as enthusiastic as the same classes who wait in the wings for their cue; they tip Edelgard’s King and Hubert’s Rook over with their own Queen.

“We take the King.”


End file.
